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How does the Catholic Church explain the part of the Bible where Adam begat …begat…begat…who begat Joseph, the father of Jesus?

I believe it is on this basis that fundamentalists claim the earth is only 6,000 years old…

So what is the Catholic explanation?

Thanks in advance all !!
 
There’s are quite a lot of these lists in the Bible, they’re called “genealogies” and to understand them you have to understand the Jewish emphasis on physical descendance. It comes from a people who were frightened of being diluted by the tribes who surrounded them. The Covenant that was made between God and Abraham means that it is important that you can trace your birth back to one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The bit you’re talking about specifically is Matthew 1. Matthew’s Gospel was written for the Jews, to show how Jesus was the promised Messiah. This is why the genealogy was included and why it was important for the first Christians (who were Jews).
 
It may be that some of the persons mentioned in the genealogies are not immediate descendents. Jesus is called the son of David, even though many generations separated them.

There is currently no teaching on the question, of which I am aware, nor any majority opinion among theologians.
 
There are parallel studies of the genealogies in the Bible, which show that often they don’t route directly from generation to generation.

If you are really concerned about this, and about Biblical dating and Semitic historical conventions, you can get into a bunch of study about the whole Middle East and its literature. You might want to do a cost/benefit ratio study, though. It’s hard to convince people who don’t want to be convinced. If they won’t take the literary convention of “day” the way the Biblical author intended it, as explained by just about every Biblical commentator ever, why would they believe the explanation of a genealogy?

But yeah, there are some good books and tapes about this kind of stuff. There was a series on EWTN a while back about the timeline of the Bible, and I think it got into Biblical genealogy? Also I think Scott Hahn’s St Paul Center for Biblical Theology has a free Bible study on the Gospel that talks about the genealogy… And have you checked catholic.com and the back issues of the Catholic Answers magazine?

Hope somebody else can give you more definite references.
 
How does the Catholic Church explain the part of the Bible where Adam begat …begat…begat…who begat Joseph, the father of Jesus?

I believe it is on this basis that fundamentalists claim the earth is only 6,000 years old…

So what is the Catholic explanation?

Thanks in advance all !!
Just a tiny correction… The genealogy at the beginning of the book of Matthew begins with Abraham - not Adam.
*1
1 2 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
2
Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.
3
Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram,
4
Ram the father of Amminadab. Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse,
6
Jesse the father of David the king. David became the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.
7
3 Solomon became the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asaph.
8
Asaph became the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, Joram the father of Uzziah.
9
Uzziah became the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.
10
Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amos, 4 Amos the father of Josiah.
11
Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the Babylonian exile.
12
After the Babylonian exile, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
13
Zerubbabel the father of Abiud. Abiud became the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor,
14
Azor the father of Zadok. Zadok became the father of Achim, Achim the father of Eliud,
15
Eliud the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob,
16
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17
Thus the total number of generations from Abraham to David is fourteen generations; from David to the Babylonian exile, fourteen generations; from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah, fourteen generations. 5 *
Also the NAB has an interesting note on these verses:
5 [17] Matthew is concerned with fourteen generations, probably because fourteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew letters forming the name of David. In the second section of the genealogy (Matthew 1:6b-11), three kings of Judah, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, have been omitted (see 1 Chron 3:11-12), so that there are fourteen generations in that section. Yet the third (Matthew 1:12-16) apparently has only thirteen. Since Matthew here emphasizes that each section has fourteen, it is unlikely that the thirteen of the last was due to his oversight. Some scholars suggest that Jesus who is called the Messiah (Matthew 1:16b) doubles the final member of the chain: Jesus, born within the family of David, opens up the new age as Messiah, so that in fact there are fourteen generations in the third section. This is perhaps too subtle, and the hypothesis of a slip not on the part of Matthew but of a later scribe seems likely. On Messiah, see the note on Luke 2:11.
 
Also - while these describe genalogy from Adam - the quesiton is how old was the earth when Adam was born. The Catholic Church does not mandate that we consider the 7 days of Genesis as literal days - these could have been ages or periods. So the world could be (probably is, according to scientific explanation) millions of years old - but the geneology could show descendants from adam.

Blessings

Brian
 
I believe it is on this basis that fundamentalists claim the earth is only 6,000 years old…

So what is the Catholic explanation?
If one is a Catholic who believes in evolution, it is possible to believe that the human race is the product of 1 man and 1 woman (which we are required to believe), and that happened 6-10 thousand years ago (not required, but I think this is a range from minimum/Biblical evidence to max/average??/scientific number), and that this happened on a planet already 2 billion years old (possibly a number I just made up).
 
I have gotten to the point where I really don’t care how old the earth is. What’s so important about it? Scientifically it may be of interest, but what does it add to the deposit of faith? 🤷
 
I have gotten to the point where I really don’t care how old the earth is. What’s so important about it? Scientifically it may be of interest, but what does it add to the deposit of faith? 🤷
I have seen the suggestion that How we were made is much less important than Why we were made.😉
 
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